Hottentotta hottentotta

I got stung by a 5i H. hottentotta a few months ago, but the experience is still as transparent in my mind as the day I got stung. It was the single most agonizing pain I've ever felt in all of my life. Nothing I've experienced can compare to the searing hot pain, but I can best describe it as: take an iron skillet put it on a gas stove on high for 15 minutes, then take your middle finger and press down in the middle of the skillet and keep it there for 6 hours without your nerves ever dying. And as much as I wish I was exaggerating, that's the closest accurate description I can give that doesn't sound completely inconceivable.

"How did you get stung," you might ask? Simple. I wanted to know what it felt like, so I picked her up by the tail, took my right middle finger, put it on her stinger then BOOM! She flexed and straightened her tail into my finger. Boy, that was fun. Like playing Five Finger Fillet with a red-hot iron rod. I put her back in the cup, close her up, and notice my middle finger had swollen way the hell up (think kielbasa among 4 hebrew nationals). I've been told I have a good tolerance for pain, so I decided to wait it out -- no ice, no drugs -- until the pain went away. Well, it didn't. And about 6 minutes later, it was creeping to my wrist, much like how Draiman described.

Draiman (Arachnoboards):

"update1: pain is getting more intense - spreading up my arm to my elbow and I also feel a slight piercing pain on the left side of my ribcage which may or may not be related to the sting

update2: on and off "bone ache" in my elbow and shoulder. the pain around the sting site is only getting worse, and there is a slight rash developing around the area."

I checked the time, and decided that if there wasn't any change in the next 30 minutes, I'll start putting it in ice. As you've probably already guessed, it didn't. Thirty long minutes later, finger is still in anguish, so I get a Ziplock sandwich bag, fill it with 15 cubes of ice and a little bit of water...this is where the fun starts. The hot skillet pain was perpetual to this moment, but the moment that finger went in that bag, the burning felt much worse, briefly...then it settles down just a bit. I remained calm, walked over to the couch and put on some cartoons. Next thing I know the burning is coming back because the ice is all melted. Sh*t. Any time I put my finger in the ice, there would be a flash of pain, then it'll settle down to a less intolerable burning sensation. Anytime I took it out of the ice though, it's like sticking your hand in a 400 degree oven.

Two hours pass, the experience has been completely consistent and agonizing. Alright, okay...time for the benadryl. I take one, wait a bit...feel anything but better. At that time though, I worried about a pain in my right shoulder creeping toward my chest...turns out my hand had been in ice for so long my arm went cold! Finger still swollen like a bratwurst. two-three hours after the first antihistamine, I take another (25mg benadry). Some time passes after this and I'm feeling a bit tired from both antihistamines.

A little under an hour after the second pill, the pain has dropped from searing hot skillet to a pain comparable to an accident involving a large rubber mallet. I took a two hour nap, woke up and the sensation had almost completely died and I had very little tingling in my finger and wrist.

Not joking, that was the worst pain in my life yet. Nevertheless, it was my own decision to sting myself since it was something I've been wanting to do for a long time, and in no way do I think it was a dumb decision. It gave me a first hand experience on what it would feel like if I got stung by this species.

That was a fun trip though. Ask me if I'd do it again? I totally would.

_________________"If you can get a scorpion to eat 24 carrots I will buy you your next one."-Jade Williamson

Yes, I've been self immunising with venom from Rhopalurus Junceus, and have to say it is really fantastic. Luckily I haven't been in that much pain yet - I usually get between 2-5 stings in total from 1-3 scorpions, but the health benefits are fantastic - in the days after I feel a much greater peripheral awareness, including what's behind me (makes me feel like I have Spider sense - boyhood dream fulfilled!), then I have a lasting feeling of vitality, communion with the best that scorpion represents, and feel really alive. Anyone else get similar experience in terms of after effects?

A much better way have found to do this than getting stung, more controlled in the dosage and the pain (by getting stung sometimes I get a big dose and sometimes just a dry sting), is to do a venom extraction. Then I either put a drop of undiluted venom on the skin (say the forearm, which is also much more tolerable than a finger) and needle through with a hypodermic syringe, or dilute the venom (I do 1:6 at the moment and inject intradermally, subcutaneously or intramuscularly, all to different strengths and effects). Intramuscular is the most painful and to the best effect in my opinion.

This is how people self immunise with snake venoms too, it is the original vaccinology before pharmaceutical inoculations and has ancient traditions in the Americas, in India, China and Pharaonic Egypt.

The type of venom is very important, as some are more beneficial to the human organism and others less so. Venoms may contain neurotoxins, hematoxins, cytotoxins and cause necrosis, so understanding the venoms and ensuring a suitable dilution and strength-increase rate is very important. It seems we can become largely immune (often completely immune) to most venoms by increasing the dosage from, for example, 1:1000 dilution and working up from there.

Antivenom (or antivenin) is made in this exact way injecting horses with greater and greater quantities of venom until strong enough antibodies are created in the horse's immune system. Then these antibodies are extracted through the blood plasma and injected into a human after a snake or spider bite, scorpion sting, etc. However it is an extremely expensive activity, especially as antivenom normally needs to be flown by helicopter to the hospital where the patient is being treated, and many people have allergic reactions to the horse antivenom, so need to also be treated with anti-allergy drugs.

So some people who extract venom from venomous creatures self immunise with the venoms they work with, so that if they get bitten, they suffer minimal damage.

Interestingly, many venoms and even a frog poison have been used on racehorses to make them outperform their competitors.

Escozul and Vidatox are Cuban medicines (Escozul was free to all Cubans and foreigners for over 30 years) made from the diluted venom of the same scorpions I work with, Rhopalurus Junceus. Escozul has helped cure many cancerous tumours either largely or completely.

This is serious stuff and there is a huge amount of research going on around the world on these substances.